Career[edit]

Brown was thrust into the national spotlight while presiding over James Earl Ray's last appeal of Ray's conviction for the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Brown was removed from the reopened investigation of King's murder due to alleged bias—former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney of Georgia wrote that Brown told her and the Congressional Black Caucus, unequivocally, that the so-called murder rifle was not the weapon that killed Martin Luther King, Jr.[2] It was during this time that Judge Brown caught the attention of the producers of Judge Judy.

Brown is running in the Democratic primary for the position of Shelby County district attorney general.[3]

Broadcast background[edit]

Judge Joe Brown is an American arbitration-based reality court show that premiered on September 14, 1998 and ran through the 2012-13 television season. The first-run syndication series entered its 15th and final season on September 10, 2012, also regularly airing in high-definition for the first time beginning in that same season as well.

The show was syndicated in the US, and aired during daytime hours. It aired on CTV in Canada and Fox8 in Australia. Like the majority of television court shows, Judge Joe Brown is a form of binding arbitration. The show's producers maintain the appearance of a civil courtroom.

Feats[edit]

Diversity[edit]

Joe Brown is the first African American male to preside over a courtroom television show and the first African American person to preside over a long-running courtroom series; however, former New York prosecutor Star Jones is the first African American person to preside over a court show (Jones and Jury 1994-95). Brown's entrance into the court show genre has been followed by other African American male arbiters, most notably Greg Mathis of the NAACP Image Award winning court show, Judge Mathis.

Staying power[edit]

With all of its seasons having aired consecutively, solely under Brown, Joseph Brown was the second longest running television jurist for many years prior to his cancellation, just behind Judith Sheindlin. While there are court shows that outnumber both Judge Joe Brown and Judge Judy in seasons within the judicial arena, namely Divorce Court and The People's Court, they are also programs with multiple lives and multiple "judges" in their histories.

Ratings[edit]

As far as ratings in the legal/courtroom genre go, Brown's program ranked in second place during its entire run, typically just above The People's Court and significantly below Judge Judy.[5] Consequently, Judge Joe was the highest rated male-arbitrated television series during its run.[6] It should be noted, however, that Brown was paired with the highly rated Judge Judy series and that when paired with a program of this caliber, any TV show has the potential to draw at least decent ratings.[7]

Adjudicating approach[edit]

For the most part, Brown has a languid and perfunctory nature about him, particularly while gathering all the facts and trying to figure out the case.[8] Occasionally, however, once he's suspected a party of being guilty, Brown has become particularly cantankerous as shown in his irritated, quarrelsome communication. Brown has also subjected these litigants to harsh tirades and judgmental commentary.[8] At several intervals throughout many of the cases, Brown has been seen up on his feet in the midst of a tirade, pacing and raging around the bench area. In these moments, he's also been known to sit atop the desktop of his bench to add emphasis to his long, angry tirades.[8] The harshest of Brown's tirades have generally been delivered to men whose behavior he regards as particularly irresponsible or egregious. In these moments, Brown flings out his personal values and guidance at men, such as: grow up and be a man, you don't know nothing about manhood, quit acting like you haven't got any "home training", be a civilized human being and stop trying to be "cool", quit acting like a "thug", take responsibility, have a sense of class and decency, etc. Brown has been criticized for these behaviors as "lacking self-control."[9]

Brown tends to allow "victimized" or "wronged" litigants ample opportunity to also berate "guilty" litigants, often delighting in this and listening in amusement; moreover, he allows audience applause and laughter at the guilty litigant's expense so that the whole courtroom is against the guilty party.[8] With brasher litigants than other courtroom programs, however, perhaps due to the nature of the cases or at least Brown's approach, guilty litigants on Judge Joe Brown have been known to act out. On past episodes, many litigants who were perceived as guilty by Brown and treated accordingly have not hesitated to chuck items around the courtroom, such as water; disrespect the judge; threaten the other party or spectators, etc. In fact, in February 2010, Brown himself was sued by one of his former television show litigants for alleged slander and fraud,[10] but won the case because of the waivers the court show has its litigants sign prior to the televised proceedings.[11] On the series, Brown has typically responded to most of the aforementioned behaviors by telling the litigants they'll be receiving a ticket or demanding that the litigant be arrested and thrown in jail.

Recurring roles[edit]

The program also featured a news reporter and bailiff. Holly Evans, was the bailiff from 1998 to 2006. Sonia Montejano replaced her for the rest of the run in 2006. Jacque Kessler, was the show's news reporter from 1998 to 2010. Former FOX Sports and current MLB Network freelance reporter Jeanne Zelasko succeeded Kessler as the reporter in 2010. Ben Patrick Johnson was the show's announcer from 1998 to 2005. Rolonda Watts succeeded him as Announcer in 2005. Popular musicians Coolio, Ike Turner, and Rick James have all been litigants on the show.

Salary[edit]

It was reported in the summer of 2012 that Brown was the second highest paid daytime television personality, earning $20 million a year, only second to Judge Judy, who earns $45 million a year.[12] In April 2013, however, following the show's cancellation, Brown disputed these reports claiming that CTD was only paying him $5 million a year.[13]

Salary negotiation conflicts and series cancellation[edit]

As reported on February 27, 2013, by Broadcasting & Cable, CTD had told Brown that the salary amount they were paying him–of $20 million (though Brown disputes this, claiming that CTD has never given him a salary of any more than $5 million[13])–would be cut in the wake of his declining ratings, license fees, and advertising revenues.[citation needed]

Ratings for Judge Joe Brown were declining during its last several seasons on the air.[citation needed] In the 2013 February sweeps, the show was down 20% to a 2.4 live plus same day rating from a 3.0 last year according to Nielsen Media Research.[citation needed] Brown refused to do the show under the new terms. Rather, he shopped his program to other distributors.[7] Station executives told Broadcasting & Cable they were less than happy to be learning about the dissension at the end of February 2013 when their options for replacing the show were limited.[7]

CTD announced on March 26, 2013 that they would be cancelling the court show and cease distributing the series after its summer 2013 reruns.[citation needed] The final CTD-produced episodes were taped on March 14, 2013. Fox station owners (that had contracted to air the program) were reportedly not interested in a CTD-chosen replacement judge.[14]

Brown later called out CTD for their treatment of him, claiming they had reneged on contract agreements, cheated him out of money, failed to give him sufficient advertising in favor of concentrating their advertisements in Judge Judy, and engaged in several other unjust, underhanded and unethical business practices.[15]

Personal life[edit]

Judge Joe Brown is divorced. Judge Joe Brown has two sons from his first marriage.[16]

In March 2014, Brown was arrested in Memphis, Tennessee, and charged with five counts of contempt of court and getting "verbally abusive" during a child support case, while reviewing a child support matter as a favor to someone he had just met. At the time, Brown was running for District Attorney of Shelby County, Tennessee.[17] He was sentenced to five days in jail,[3][18] but was later released on his own recognizance.[19] He lost the election to Republican incumbent Amy Weirich by 65% to 35%.[20]